Palmetto State Armory, under their Harrington & Richardson brand, has released a particularly neat model of 9mm AR. They talked about doing this “at some point” at SHOT Show 2024, but lo and behold it’s here and available on the cusp of SHOT 2025! Specifically, this is the Colt 633, an extra-short version of the Colt 9mm SMG. Originally released in 1985, Colt’s 9mm adaptation of the AR/M16 platform was never hugely successful against competitors like the MP5. This particular model, with a 7″ barrel, was only produced in very limited numbers originally, with the Department of Energy being the only significant purchaser. Why does the DoE need submachine guns, you might ask? Because they are legally responsible for security for nuclear material transportation and facilities.
This new clone of the 633 form H&R/PSA comes with a stabilizing brace that is designed to very closely resemble the original Colt collapsing stock. It uses the same sort of modified Uzi magazines as the original Colts, and is a very good external reproduction while featuring modern internals that are rathe improved form the 1985 state of the art. The most evident non-original feature is the threaded muzzle, which gives a level of flexibility that I suspect most people will appreciate despite its non-originality.
Disclaimer: PSA sent me this for filming. I paid for the SRB registration.
H&R also made some M-14 rifles. I was issued a brand new M-14 National Match at Camp Perry in 1967. Made by H&R, it was a minute of angle rifle, and I got 2 silver medals with it. We brought it back to Connecticut with us, for the state rifle team.
I have a few H&Rs but they are in guages not calibers.The also made the T-48 which was a version of the FN FAL for US trials i believe.
H&R was like Savage. Solid working tools, reliable and inexpensive. I don’t know why they went out of business, but military contracts could have been involved.
This seems to work for them considering that they were able literally over millions examples of one model of revolver (AUTOMATIC EJECTOR MODEL) through 4 decades.
Source: https://gun-data.com/harrington-richardson-moderm
“(…)made(…)version of the FN FAL for US trials(…)”
Yes, they seems to be glad to make weapon designed by others
6,35 mm pistol https://unblinkingeye.com/Guns/H_R_Auto/h_r_auto.html which was Whiting design
5,56 mm automatic rifle https://www.forgottenweapons.com/hnr-t223-manual/
.45 Auto sub-machine gun http://modernfirearms.net/en/submachine-guns/u-s-a-submachine-guns/reising-m50-m55-eng/
My dad was issued a Reising gun while he was a guard at the naval prison for a while in WWII. He never used it, but we had a photo of him with a bunch of other Marines- all with Reisings.
Maybe the current H&R could finally debug the Reising?
I understand that the weak point was the magazine, and somebody has finally made a reliable one. I almost bought a Reising about 25 years ago, but the cost of feeding it…
One of these days, I want Ian to do an episode on “Weapons of the DOE”, and go over all the amazing stuff they’ve purchased over the years. I know I’ll never see it, but I want to know more about those autonomous remote weapons stations they’ve been purchasing for inside the storage buildings… I have this image of a guy in a secure room somewhere with a Playstation controller having the time of his life with all those pods covering a nuclear fuel site…
That’d be a really cool job to have for a former machinegunner.